Equipment
The primary customisation factor of individual characters within the game, the equipment chosen by the Pilots, Engineers and Gunners are the thing that makes their own character different to play than anyone elses. Most equipment either gives completely new abilities such as "Incendiary Rounds" that allows guns to set enemy ships on fire, or dramatically improve old ones for some kind of trade off: "Moonshine", for example, greatly increases forward/backwards speed but greatly reduces turning ability as well as heavily damaging the ships engines. Any modification that bestows an advantage typically also confers some kind of cost. Piloting Equipment Chute Vent The Chute Vent tool allows a ship to rapidly decend by releasing gas from the balloon. This can be very good when maneuvering, however, keep in mind that the momentum of the decend will contunue for several seconds after switching tools. For this reason, try to anticipate the momentum so you don't sink far below an enemy ship or worse yet, crash into the ground. The Chute Vent will also damage the balloon while it is in use. Drouge Chute The Drouge Chute is an emergency parachute that a captain can deploy to reduce his speed, both horizontally and vertically. Hydrogen Canister By mixing the gas mix in the balloon with some Hydrogen gas, the ship gains greater climbing force. However, it also makes the mixture of the balloon more prone to combustion, as well as damaging the balloon while it is active. Impact Bumpers Ramming Speed! The impact bumpers reduce the damage the ship takes from collisions, whether this be from the enviroment or another ship. Impact Bumpers can be used with Kerosene or Moonshine to ram enemy ships to reduce hull damage by 25%. Kerosene While Kerosene is being used, all engines have greater force, which translates to an increased top speed and turning speed. However, all engines take damage while Kerosene is active. Moonshine This item greatly increases the speed of the ship at the cost of decreased turning speed and massive damage to the engines while the item is active. Phoenix Claw When the Phoenix Claw is active, the ship has a much greater turning speed. All engines, however, take damage during this. Spyglass This item allows the user to spot an enemy ship using the primary fire of the tool. In addition, the spyglass has multiple zoom levels, allowing you to spot ships from a very long distance away. The spyglass is currently the only piloting item that can be used away from the helm; making it an excellent choice for other crewmembers on a ship to take. Repair Equipment Used primarily for reversing damage, destruction, or other ill effects on a ship's parts. The Engineer class carries the largest assortment of Repair Equipment within its loadout, which will typically include one firefighting tool and at least one damage repairing tool. Most non-engineers will simply carry a single basic repair tool such as the Rubber Mallet or Pipe Wrench. This category is notable for containing no items that give disadvantages in exchange for the advantages they offer. Rubber Mallet, Pipe Wrench, and Shifting Spanner The three 'basic' repair items all have the capacity to repair damage and rebuild airship components, but vary in the amount of damage healed, the cooldown on repair, and the rate of rebuild for broken components. Rubber Mallet Ideal for a pilot or gunner who wants to spend as much time as possible doing something other than repairing, this tool does the most repair in a single hit making tapping things on your way between guns an effective strategy for freeing the engineer up for buffing or firefighting. *225 HP Per Hit *9 second cooldown *Repair Power 1 *Repair Rate 25 HP/s Pipe Wrench A versatile tool commonly used by engineers who'd like to free up a slot for the Dynabuff kit, this tool repairs broken (red) ship systems twice as fast as the mallet, and only has a slightly lower overall repair rate. The main disadvantage comes from the shorter cooldown meaning it's less useful when running between guns, but is still long enough for a dedicated engineer to manage multiple subsystems. Some gunners who intentionally break their guns as part of their attack strategy will much prefer this to the rubber mallet. *120 HP Per Hit *5 second cooldown *Repair Power 2 *Repair Rate 24 HP/s Shifting Spanner A very specialised tool which should probably only be used by engineers, this tool has a relatively poor rate of hitpoint restoration and tiny cooldown which necessitates standing in one spot whacking away, this tool is nonetheless the only way to survive heavy assault on some ships as it repairs destroyed components at three times the rate of the mallet (this allows the armour to be repaired just before what would otherwise be a killing blow to the hull in some heavy fire situations, such as sustained medium flak fire). *20 HP Per Hit *2 second cooldown *Repair Power 3 *Repair Rate 20 HP/s Fire Extinguisher and Chemical Spray The two firefighting items perform the same function but differ in the intricacies involved in their use. The Chemical Spray only removes two instances of fire from a ship component per use but has a very short cooldown (<0.5 seconds) and confers increased fire resistance on the targeted ship component for a brief period after its use. The Fire Extinguisher instantaneously removes all instances of fire from the target ship component upon use, but has a five second cooldown between uses and does not confer any resistance to fire after its use. The Fire Extinguisher and Chemical Spray have more redundance in their function than the other repair tools in Guns of Icarus Online, and consequentially an Engineer will typically carry only one of the two into battle. Dynabuff Industries Kit While incapable of repairing any damage to a ship's components, the Dynabuff Industries Kit- through repeated applications- will increase a ship component's performance parameters for a short period of time. The specific effects of the enhancement vary dependent on the component on which it is used: If used on the hull, the ship's armor is increased; If used on the engines, engine strength is increased; if used on a weapon, the weapon becomes more damaging; and if used on the balloon, the airship has an increased rate of ascent and descent. Salvage Kit No longer present in the game, The Salvage Kit was a specialized repair item that, when used on a broken component, would immediately repair the component to functionality and restore a small portion of health to that component. Unlike the Rubber Mallet, Pipe Wrench, and Shifting Spanner, it could not mend damage to a ship's components while they were intact and functioning. Weapon Equipment All weapon items are modifications of the actual ammunition that the gun uses when firing. This has several effects. The first is that any swapping of chosen items while at a gun will automatically reload the gun before it can be used. (Selected items can be swapped during reloading with no penalty) The second is that if you leave a gun with a certain type of ammuntion loaded in the gun, another person can use that gun with that ammuntion until the weapon needs to reload again. Burst Rounds These rounds increase the explosion radius of a weapon. In addition, the weapon benefits from a larger clip size, but suffers from a slight rate-of-fire loss. This can be useful for damaging multiple components at once. Charged Rounds These rounds deal more damage per shot, at a cost of clip size and firing speed. Charged rounds are best used with low clip sized weapons such as the Small Howitzer. Greased Rounds These rounds offer the weapon an increased rate-of-fire and clip size, however, the weapon's rotation speed and damage is reduced. The weapon's rate of fire is increased by 60%, while the weapon damage is only reduced by 20%, making Greased Rounds an excellent choice for medium range barrages. Heatsink Clip These rounds prevent the weapon from being lit on fire while they are in use. There is also a bonus to clip size and rotation speed, but there is also a reduction in damage dealt per shot. If facing enemies with flamethrowers or incendiary ammunition, it is adviced to load all unused cannons with Heatsink clips, as the weapons will be immune to fire. Heavy Clip These rounds are heavier, reducing the recoil of a weapon, but also their projectile speed. Heavy clips are best used at medium range for taking out small key components, such as flamethrowers or engines. Incendiary Rounds These rounds have a greater chance of starting fires on impact. There is also a reduced clip size, projectile speed, and rate-of-fire. Lesmok Rounds These rounds have a faster projectile speed and lift, at the cost of clip size and rotation speed. The Lesmok rounds can turn most shell based weapons into deadly snipers, by making up for the projectile drop. Lochnagar Shot This round is a very specialized one. It greatly increases the damage of the weapon firing it and greatly reduces the recoil. However, it can only fire one round, and suffers a large penalty to the weapon's rotation. In addition, this round does heavy damage to the gun when fired. This should only be used together with low clipsized weapons, and only if the gunner has the pipe wrench or the shifting spanner, or if theres an engineer keeping the weapon repaired while it's being used. since the weapon will be destroyed after a few shots, it is usually better to have the shifting spanner or wrench, since the rubber mallet repairs broken components very slowly, and often the downtime is not worth the bonus damage. The turn speed reduction of 90% means that good coordination between the pilot and the gunner is required.